When the Spanish arrived in the kingdoms of the pre-colonial Philippines, they brought their horses, their religion and way of life. The Spanish entered the country in the group of islands between the two largest islands in the north and south: the Visayas islands. It was here that European influence first inflicted culture shock before it spread to the rest of the country in the 16th century. Perhaps that is why certain myths of monsters persist more in this region to this day. It is here that tales of horse-headed monsters and flying vampires abound. The nature of these monsters reveals the repressed fears of a people stripped of their past. Carl Jung once said that “…tAll mythology could be taken as a kind of projection of the collective unconscious. “A town projects the collective background of its history through the myths it perpetuates. Two mythical creatures shed light on the impact of colonization on the Filipino psyche.

Tea Tikbalangthe horse-headed giant

Tea tikbalangs they are creatures that are normally seen at the entrance of forests. They were said to be about 10 feet tall, with the head of a horse and the body of a very hairy man. Old legends warn that tikbalangs raped women who later give birth tikbalangs. Other than that, they are said to mislead travelers, giving them illusory visions of tall golden buildings. When a victim is under the spell of a Tikbalang, his only defense is to wear the shirt inside out. Some believe that the Tikbalang It was a creation of the Spanish to discourage night wanderings. The names are not of Spanish origin, unlike the enchanted reminiscent of European fairy tales. To this day, locals in that region report seeing these creatures at night. the nature of Tikbalang It seems to have a symbolic meaning. Horses were foreign to the Filipinos before the Spanish arrived. In the mind of a Filipino, a horse represents a Spaniard. Hairy and tall is also what differentiates the European man from the Filipino man. It seems that the Filipino collective unconsciously produced a creature that symbolically laments the violation of their nation. Since the arrival of the Spanish, their land became a place to breed this foreign seed for their people. Tea tikbalangs he misled travelers on their way home with illusory promises of wealth and advancement, only keeping the victim away from home. The only way to find your way back is to use the “backwards” self. the myth of tikbalangs emerged seems to call the Filipino psyche to awareness of the dangers of being raped by the influence of tall riders.

Tea manananggal vampires

Perhaps more persistent than the Tikbalang is he manananggal. This creature was a normal person before her mother passed a mysterious white rock, which she is supposed to swallow the next in line. Still looking like a normal person during the day; at night, the manananggal he wanders through the woods looking for a secluded place to leave the lower part of his body. The upper part detaches from the waste upwards. Gigantic bat wings grow from the upper torso. He would then wander the skies looking for the homes of pregnant women. Tea manananggal it feeds on the fetuses at night while the mother sleeps soundly in bed using her tongue as a thread that can go through a small hole in the ceiling. The tongue finds its way into the womb of a pregnant woman and sucks the blood from the fetus. It is believed that to kill a manananggal, you have to find its lower body and put salt on it, preventing the upper half from rejoining. When it dawns before the manananggal clings to its lower half, the morning light will burn it to death. This most malevolent creature seems to signify the Filipinos’ unacknowledged fears that it has been separated from its roots. The word manananggal literally means, “the one who removes“The demonic quality is willingly swallowed from parents who pass it on by mouth, symbolizing that it is through word of mouth that cultural vampirism is perpetuated. While the unconscious, represented by the lower half of the body, remains rooted in the earth; the upper half, the conscious half, terrifies the mind and feeds on the future generation of Filipinos who will not be born. By purifying the source, the darkness can no longer connect the roots of the earth. It is by isolating the part of the culture that it feeds. in future Filipinos, they can expose the monster for what it is: an infection of the mind that separates them from its heritage.

While the legacy of Spain is now an integral part of Filipino life with over 70% of its inhabitants actively practicing Catholicism, the mutilation of Filipino heritage resonates to this day in the area of ​​the country that felt it most, the Visayan. Islands. Most Filipinos fully embrace Catholicism and continue to make it part of their culture centuries after the Spanish left the country. But aside from the Filipino collective unconscious, he is searching for his forgotten identity. There, lurking under the fervent praying of the rosary during the day and the nightmarish stories of tikbalangs Y manananggals at night, it is a town that unconsciously mourns the history it has lost.